Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog. I first want to thank all of you who stopped by to visit and play along with us last weekend during Leslie-Rahye's spooky steampunk blog hop. As promised, I want to announce the winner of my blog candy. And the winner is ...

Lyneen!

Congratulations, Lyneen, and here is what you have won.

Please e-mail me with your address so I can send this out to you as soon as possible.

Thanks so much for your participation, and I hope you will come back soon.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another steampunk edition of Leslie-Rahye's Very Spooky Steampunk Blog Hop. I am so glad you are here and I hope you can sit back and visit each blog today and enjoy some spooky inspiration from each of the very talented artists' projects. I also have some blog candy to give away, so please read to the bottom of the post to find out how you can have a chance to win.

My project is a very spooky steampunky skull mask.

I started out with a bare paper mache mask.

Using a technique I recently learned from a class I took with Tim Holtz, I covered the entire mask with odd shapes of adhesive-backed foil. I made faux rivets using a ball point pen and pressing into the foil along the edges. Faux stitches were made by using a credit card or other similar object and pushing into the foil. I then used some alcohol inks to color the foil, added some black acrylic paint to get down into the embossed areas, and a piece of steel wool brought back some of the color underneath the black acrylic paint.

In the picture below, you can see where more faux stitches were made by piercing the mask with an awl and inserting small pieces of wire in a cross-stitch manner. I used large gear pieces and brads for his eyes by first piercing holes around the eye socket so I could stitch the gears into place with wire. I also wired the openings in his cheeks, inserted bolts into the side of his head, and gave him a very "punky" style of headdress (pictured above) by cutting and wire wrapping a piece of copper tubing and inserting it first through washers and nuts, then through the holes made in his head to accept the tubing. Industrial Chic charms were added to dangle from the tubing. Clock hands were used for his eyebrows. I think it gives Mr. Skull some character, don't you?

No steampunk skull is complete without its black rose, so since Mr. Skull has no body, he has only his teeth to hold the rose.

I hope you have enjoyed my project, and be sure to visit the rest of the artists' blogs in the hop. And many thanks to Leslie-Rahye for hosting this swap, and Fabrizio Martellucci for coordinating the hop for us.

Now, for a chance to win my blog candy, I would appreciate if you could leave me a comment and let me know you were here, and also become a follower if you are not already one. That's all you need to do. It's as easy as that. I will announce the winner right here next week, on Halloween, 31 October. Here is what you could win.

Below are the links to each blog, so please be sure to visit everyone.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

As most of you probably know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and Altered Pages is hosting a Think Pink challenge this month to remind us of the importance of getting ourselves checked. So, my Think Pink challenge piece is this cute candy jar that I cut from a Sizzix die designed by Eileen Hull and covered with BoBunny Double Dots paper. In this photo, you can see the dimension of the piece from the side.

The photo below shows the candy jar from the front. I used a Spellbinders die to cut the layered lacy rectangular piece and a Sizzix vintage die to cut out the image of the beautiful woman in pink from the Altered Pages Think Pink collage sheet. I edged the pieces with Pumice Distress ink, and I used the same color Distress Stain to color off-white ribbon to match. I also made the ribbon flower that sits just above the central image. I think it looks so vintage. I cut out the "Make a Difference" phrase from the Altered Pages Thanks for the Support collage sheet, backed it with some of the pink card stock, and inserted it into a trinket pin.

The photo below shows the back of the candy jar. I used the pink ribbon with flowers, also from the Think Pink collage sheet, and added teeny tiny flowers from the ribbon that I used along the bottom of the jar.

The pictures below simply show the two chipboard pieces (center) that I painted pink around the edges, and the four pieces of card stock that I die cut from the double dot paper to cover both sides of the chipboard. The piece pictured above the jar pieces is simply the piece that holds them together, and is part of the die.

I wanted the candy jar lid to have some dimension, so I cut a smaller piece of chipboard from the top of the die, painted the edges and covered only one side of the lid piece with contrasting paper. I stamped a non-descript image on the lid, also using the Pumice Distress Ink. To get the rounded bottom for the lid, I used the bottom of the candy jar stand to draw a line where I removed the excess chipboard, giving me the curve I needed for the lid.

I hope you enjoyed my project for today. I love the vintage feel of this piece, and since pink is my favorite color, I am so happy to be able to participate in this challenge this month. When it comes to breast cancer, not only women, but also men, need to be vigilant always if we want to try to beat this awful disease that strikes so many of us. Having said that, thanks so very much for stopping by, and have a pleasant and joyful week.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Hello to all you Robin's Nest fans, and welcome to my Halloween-inspired project. For this, my second post of the month, I made a card for The Robin's Nest. I absolutely love the spooky, even macabre genre of Halloween. I am just a freaky kind of ghoul... I mean girl.

As you can see, I kept it simple for this card. I started with a piece of black card stock, cut to 10" x 6-1/2", folded in half to form a 5" x 6-1/2" card. I die cut a shape using Glitter Orange Cracklecard stock and inked the edges with Black distress ink. To add some dimension to the card, I used foam tape to adhere it. I usedScraperfect Best Glue Everto adhere the Candelabra from the Glitter Halloween Chipboard Shapes. I absolutely love these shapes. They are so much fun to use. And if you have not used this glue before, you are in for a treat. It is absolutely the "best glue ever". It really does stand up to its name.

I also adhered these cute glitteryBats Chipboardpieces around the candelabra as though they are attracted to the light. I glued the corner web from the Spider Clippiesset to the upper left hand corner of the card. Clippies are fun little printed corner embellishments that can be clipped onto anything, but I trimmed the clip portion off and glued it down directly to the card. What fun to be able to change it up and use these in different ways.

I further embellished the candelabra using my favorite dew drop adhesive, Dew Dew Glue, and theScraperfect Embellie Gellietool to pick up eachFall Foliage Dew Dropsto mimic the flames, as well as decorating the base of the candelabra withDark Vanilla Dew Drops. I added a couple of Halloween Dew Drops to each bat's body, and Aqua Marine Dew Drops to the three remaining corners of the card. I love to continue the theme and/or colors of my card to the inside, for several reasons. In the case of a dark card, such as this, it is hard to see what you stamp and/or write inside. However, using a piece of lighter card stock, such as this orange paper, it is much easier to read. It also gives you another opportunity to embellish the inside of your card a bit more. I punched the edges with a spider web punch, which helps tie it all together.

And don't forget to sign your work on the back. Hallmark does it ... so should you. I really love how this card turned out. Of course, The Robin's Nest papers and embellishments always make it so easy to look so good. I hope you will visit The Robin's Nest Online Storeto see all of the new papers and embellishments for October, as well as those used for this project.

I also want to let you know that The Robin's Nest will be hosting a blog hop right here on Saturday, 3 November, featuring projects created by The Robin's Nest Design Team. The theme will be Home for the Holidays, with prizes and so much fun that you will not want to miss this event. So mark your calendars and be sure to join us.

As always, it has been a pleasure to visit with you today, and I hope you will return for more inspiration from not only me, but the other very talented designers working for you over at The Robin's Nest.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another edition of my Tips and Techniques Thursday. While it has been a busy week for me, I want to share a few tips with you this week, as well as announce the winner of my blog candy. But first, you have to read through my tips and techniques to find out who is the winner. Okay, I know you can scroll down, but I do plan on being brief. Have you ever been in need of a scoring tool and did not have one? Try this ... replace the blade in your craft knife with a paper clip. Unfold the paper clip and snip off the "u" shape, then insert the cut ends into your craft knife and tighten. It makes really nice score lines. You can then use your bone folder to press the scored lines.A neat little trick to try when cutting foam tape off of the roll is to cut the tape upside down, that is, instead of cutting it with the liner paper up, cut it with the liner paper facing down. The liner paper will be against the scissor blades instead of the sticky foam, and this will help prevent the foam tape from sticking to your scissors and leaving a lot of residue.Now to announce the lucky winner of my blog candy from this past weekend's All Things Altered Fall/Halloween Blog Hop, hosted by Pam Bray over at Scrapbook Flaire. It looks like the winner is ...

Congratulations, Vicki. I will get this out to you as soon as I get your "vital statistics". And thanks to everyone who played along. It was great fun and I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. Well, that's it for this week. I hope you will stop by again soon for a visit. And I hope everyone has a very creative week.Barbara

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Just wanted to let everyone know that, in honor of World Card Making Day on October 6th, for a full two hours, several designers from The Robin's Nest will be demonstrating card making projects, via live stream. The event begins at 12:00pm EST through 2:00pm EST. Every 15 minutes, a new card project will be demonstrated. And, if that is not enough, prizes will also be given away every 15 minutes. Doesn't that sound like a fun way to spend a bit of your Saturday afternoon? So, mark those calendars and be prepared for a ton of fun, some great giveaways, and lots of card projects to inspire you.

I hope you will join us for this wonderful event. Just click on this link on October 6th to join us live. See you there!